This has been quite a day of witnessing the Lord’s hand in my life. Obviously, God wanted to bless my friend, Morgan, and me through African wildlife today, so he caused us to almost be attacked by monkeys and zebras! We were beginning our usual morning run, and all of the sudden, up comes trotting a zebra. And then another. And another! Soon, there were FIVE zebra, briskly trotting towards us! The road was narrow! There was nowhere to go! We stayed still, as zebra are peaceful animals. Out of the blue, one, obviously the dominant zebra, starts staring us down, and snorting! Oh NO! We turned around and hide around the bend. “They’ll leave soon,” we thought. We waited about a minute, and began creeping back around the corner. And we come almost face to face with the snorting , staring-us-down zebra that is now aggressively pawing the ground, about to charge! I have never run so fast in my life!
Just as my friend, Mike Pryor, an APU alumni, has always told me, if a friend and I are being chased by a wild animal, I don’t need to be faster than the animal. I just need to be faster than my friend. This is what popped into my mind! Sorry, Morgan! But honestly… she can outrun me any day, so I would have been the zebra meat. Anyway, we turned around and ran all the way home. Those darn zebras stole our morning exercise.
After God rescued us from a zebra attack, my semester visited two service sites. One of the parts of this semester I am most excited about are service sites. Being a servant in the South African community is directly built into the program! We have intensive classes for six weeks, and then we participate in service sites for four weeks. We have been touring service sites every week to see where we want to serve for four weeks. Today, we visited Walk in the Light.
Walk in the light is awesome. I adore the program! It’s completely great. It’s all about manual labor and being apart the community, building things for people while growing great relationships and ministering. Awesome, right? Too bad I know nothing about building. Literally. I would be such a detriment to the construction process. If it was not about actual building, I would definitely go there. And I am SO excited to see what is accomplished through the team that goes there!
That brings me to decide that my top two choices for service sites are Ithemba and Ethembeni. Both programs are highly child-oriented, which I love! I would be playing with children, leading Bible studies, assisting teaching English, and engaging in the arts! But I am still praying that God would point my heart the way He wants me to go!
One of the best parts of my day: I ended up talking to my friend Tyler randomly and it turned into this total, undeniable God moment. Talk about amazing. I have been so impressed with the people God hand-picked to be apart of this semester! I am always surprised by how incredible these people are! Don’t get me wrong… I thought they were wonderful at first, but now, I am just in awe.
After lunch, I had the intention of cramming for my Zulu midterm tomorrow. But… I ended up hanging out with my friends Allie and Colton. I know this is crazy, but I think God is teaching me how to live a more balanced life. Pre-South Africa, I was always work-until-it-gets-done-and-then-maybe-I’ll-fit-in-some-time-to-play. Here, I am trying to place God first in everything. This has shifted relationships to second place, and school to third. And I honestly think Jesus is blessing me in that. We’ll see tomorrow, after my HUGE midterm. But this is my theory of what has occurred thus far!
Tonight, was our first official “D-Group,” or Bible study, meeting. I am so excited to get to know everyone as well as possible! I am truly in a great group. We shared life stories tonight. The stories really helped to keep my life in perspective. Most of the stories reminded me of how phenomenal God is. Truly. And how you choose how you come out of a situation. You can choose to focus on the negatives in your life and sulk, or you can choose to seek God and rely on Him and grow and decide to see the positive. Thanks for the lesson, guys.
After the meeting, I had an amazing God talk with my D-Group leader, Lindsay. Shocker. Not! She always adds life-changing insight to my life. I am so blessed to know her.
I am praying that I remain attentive to God’s voice. I don’t want to miss ANYTHING.
The adventure continues!
